Score more runs than the other team; it’s just that simple. The team that scores more than they give up will win games and vice versa. Even at this early juncture, the teams scoring more runs – regardless of their record right now – are better off.

I won’t bore you with the geeky math details, but using the Pythagorean theorem one can estimate how many games a team should win or lose based off of the runs it has scored and given up. Doing this can give a better view of how a team is playing than its current win-loss record.

So, for these power rankings, I looked at how each team would finish the full 162 game season if they kept scoring runs and giving them up at the rate they are now. The results may surprise you. Read More…

Quick! Time’s running out to jump on the Matt LaPorta bandwagon. It was pretty empty here for a while, but a trickle of people are finally starting to find their way aboard.

Matt LaPorta has played in all but one game of the Cleveland Indians’ torrid 11-4 start, and yet he can’t seem to get the monkey off his back. As recently as last week, one of the Tribe Talk questions was basically, should we pull the plug on Matt LaPorta at first base?

The vibe in Cleveland has been essentially “thank goodness we got Michael Brantley in the CC Sabathia trade because Matt LaPorta is a bust.”

Luckily for the Tribe, that’s just not true. Let’s do a quick stat check between LaPorta before this year and LaPorta this year to help prove this point:

It may still be really early in the season, but as the weather heats up, so does the proverbial seat that each manager sits on.

A fast start can do a lot to assuage the demands of the fans, whereas a slow start can make the calls come louder and more bloodthirsty.

Again, I know that it’s early. I know that nobody’s getting fired anytime soon. However, what we can do right now is figure out who should start feeling uncomfortable if they can’t turn things around soon.

I’ve tried to leave first-year managers off this list, since they should get a slightly longer leash to establish themselves.

Down the road, they may be in trouble. For today, most of them are safe.

Did I say I know it’s early? This is all just speculation.

I realise I’ll catch flack for suggesting that people could be fired, just half a month into the season.

However, once again, I’m just looking ahead and predicting. That’s it. It might not come to pass. Who knows?

I go to the trouble of writing out these stat lines because, over the last offseason, I lost sight of how great Grady was. I spent plenty of time thinking about how Grady’s time had probably passed. How quickly things change.

We were all spoiled by how great Sizemore was at such a young age. At the time, it seemed like he would lead the Tribe for years to come.

Then came the injuries. 2009 and 2010 knocked Grady off the pedestal he was on and brought him back down to Earth.

Now, in 2011, Grady’s nearly ready to rejoin the big league club. He’s currently at Akron on a rehab assignment and I was able to witness him play on Saturday.

The 2011 season is under way, and like normal, there are plenty of questions about the Tribe’s roster.

Another cheap offseason has left plenty of outcasts and also-rans filling key positions on the team and pundits once again expect the Indians to lose more than their share of games.

There is still hope for the season, however. Quite a few players on this Tribe team (more than the average person realizes) would be key players on contenders.

The real injustice of the 2011 Cleveland Indians roster is how underrated it is. Plenty of people have written it off without taking a long, hard look at the players.

So, let’s take a look at the entire Indians 25-man roster and rank them from 25th to first. Note that I’m only doing the active roster, meaning Grady Sizemore, Jason Donald, Joe Smith and Trevor Crowe aren’t on this list.

When I re-rank these players around the 40-game mark, hopefully these players will be up and going, and thus able to be ranked. As it is, here is the 2011 Indians roster from worst to first. Read More…